• Why doesn't my great website get the traffic it deserves?
• Tell me why SEO investments pay
• What is SEO?
• Isn't meta tag overestimated?
• Is flash bad for SEO?
• How do you evaluate and benchmark?
• Does every page of my website really need to be optimised?
• Why should I choose WebDialogue?
• Isn't this something we can do ourselves?
• How long will it take to get my site optimized?
• If SEO elements are so important, why weren't they implemented from the beginning?
• What distinguishes search engine marketing from other types of advertising?
• What is the future of SEO?
• How important is the Website design or structure for SEO?
• If a company does not take its website's SEO seriously how can it be convinced to think otherwise?
• Do you provide any SEO Guarantee?
• Do I really need to optimize my web site for search engines?
• What is SEO and why do I need it?
• What is spamdexing?
• Why is SEO important and how can it help my business?
• When will I start seeing results of SEO?
• How do I know that my SEO vendor is indulging in unethical SEO practices?
• What do the terms "white hat SEO" and "black hat SEO" mean?
• Which practices are considered unethical or black hat SEO?
• Do you offer database of European Affairs contacts?
• How many characters (words?) does Google want in meta tags?
• Is there SEO for flash sites?

Why doesn't my great website get the traffic it deserves?

Small organisations often under-value the power of the web to bring them new business, and to bring them precisely the kinds of clientele they want. Some will invest in a great website and then fail to market it. There are great websites that are virtually "invisible" on the WWW. Marketing on the web has at least this in common with other marketing: Regardless of the quality of the advertisement, it will not bring you traffic unless lots of people see it.

Tell me why SEO investments pay

Most Internet surfers use search engines to find services or information. When a customer is searching for a product which is listed in your website, your product listing should come on top.

• SEO benefits include targeted traffic, increase brand visibility, high ROI, and higher sales
• Not only it is one of the most cost-effective ways of marketing but also have better usability, cross-browser compatibility and accessibility

We, at WebDialogue, are committed to sustainable results and maximum return on investments, through methodical search engine positioning.

What is SEO?

The purpose of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to have your website appear at the top of search engine queries for as many relevant search phrases as possible. WebDialogue will help you improve your website’s ranking and increase the volume of targeted audience.
Probably more than 80% of most website traffic comes from search engines and directories. Your SEO and positioning techniques should be strategic in order to attract the right customers/audience and to place your site better than competitors.

• Our goal is to meet your online marketing requirements ethically and professionally
• We do this through coding (mainly in XHTML and programming) and text writing

Isn't meta tag overestimated?

"I know. I know. Seasoned search engine optimization (SEO) professionals might yawn and roll their eyes when the subject of meta-tag optimization comes up, as they might think, "Meta-tag optimization is SO 1990s."

Personally, I think meta-tag content gets a bad rap because, in the past, many SEO professionals and website owners exploited meta-tags to achieve undeserved search engine visibility. As a result, the tags’ content was devalued in favor of other criteria. Overall, though, if you look at the big picture, meta-tag abuse contributed to the evolution of better, more accurate ways for determining the "aboutness" of web documents."
- Quote from searchengineland

Is flash bad for SEO?

1. Have your website rebuilt using only small pieces of flash and have the rest done in traditional HTML. We can help you with this work if you want to. I see you have approximately six unique pages in three languages - in other words a rather simple website. This we could redo for you in HTML within weeks. (Less cool graphic, but MUCH more discoverable on the web, guaranteeing you more business than your present website gives.) After this work, you now have the option to do various tricks to really make this new HTML site visible.
2. You can keep you website as it is, and we could do various work on the internet (not you your website, but on others') in order to make your site more profiled and linked to. This solution is not as good as 1), as it will not improve you Google search results very much, but it will bring you traffic from other sources. Here are some ideas:

How do you evaluate and benchmark?

We take a ‘picture’ of our current situation (page rank the pages of our site) in order to be able to compare the results later on and check the impact of the system in place. The "picture" of the site's present page rank, Alexa rank and positioning for ten different search entries in google will give us something to compare with for later evaluation.

Example:
Frozen picture of www.webdialogue.eu on the internet as of 29 April 2009:

• Alexa rank: 5,228,389
• PageRank: 5/10
• Sites Linking In: 12

Search positioning in Google:
For these two queries you are positioned very good so no need to work on that:

• Webdialogue 1
• Web Dialogue 1

Would you agree that we should focus on these ten queries as benchmarking?

• communication
• communication tools
• advocacy
• strategy
• campaigning
• campaign
• worldcom
• pr
• public relations
• policy

If you agree, I will ask my assistant to find these positions for you. Otherwise, please write me your preferred queries as your know your clients better than me.

Does every page of my website really need to be optimised?

In a word - yes.
Every page of a website can be a potential entry point or ‘landing page’ for visitors. You can't predict which page or pages will be ranked the best for specific keywords. As such, each page must be individually optimised for optimal ranking. Collectively, all pages of your website reinforce the common "theme" of the site, which also can help boost ranking. Don't assume that your home page is the only important page on your site.

Why should I choose WebDialogue?

To achieve a high ranking web site, you have to know exactly the most effective meta tag design formula, best web copywriting techniques, keep track of current search engine ranking algorithms, know what format to submit the site in to every engine and how often to resubmit the site.

You also need to know whether your site is technically compatible with search engine robots, what types of pages the engines will accept and which will be barriers to ranking, plus what sort of overall “relevancy score” your site will receive from each engine you submit to.

Not only that, but once you're ranking highly, you have to monitor your progress and adjust your tags every now and then to ensure you stay up above your competitors on all engines for your major search phrases. These are all crucial steps to a high ranking, but very time consuming and not your core business! That is why we conduct SEO competitor analysis to make sure your site stays above the competition.

WebDialogue is specialist in the area of search engine marketing, whose full-time role is to place our clients high in the search engines and keep them there.

Isn't this something we can do ourselves?

Large amounts of time, attention and expertise are needed to achieve the desired results in such a constantly changing niche industry. Plus lists of hundreds of relevant sites to submit your site to. The expense of adding personnel and necessary resources alone would quickly outweigh the cost of hiring our company, which is why outsourcing SEO is by far the most popular method.

Remember, WebDialogue has already established strong, ongoing relationships with all the top search engines, and has experience professionals who are constantly researching the changes and trends in this dynamic field.

How long will it take to get my site optimized?

This will depend on the service you have taken from us and the website we are given to work with (New site or an Old site).

Generally it takes 4-10 weeks for a new website with moderate competition to get indexed in to the major search engines like google, yahoo, msn etc. (Google takes the most time to Add New Sites) and approx 4-6 months to get Google Page Rank, but to achieve at the PR of 5-7 you will continuously have to focus on SEO, as it is an ongoing continuous process and keeps you in the competition with new sites coming every day.

If SEO elements are so important, why weren't they implemented from the beginning?

Most website designers haven't learned the importance of search engine friendly website design. In almost every case we've encountered, the site designer is a highly skilled and creative person whose job is to put your ideas on the web. More often than not, the designers have not received any training in search engine optimization and don't think about it while pursuing a cool looking design.

Search engines are also constantly changing their ranking criteria. They do this to prevent gross manipulation of their search tools. Often, website designers are not fully up to date with changes to search engines.

WebDialogue are happy to work with designers at the beginning of the web design process, or we can make every effort to maintain the desired elements of an existing site while converting and introducing new elements to make the site search engine friendly.

What distinguishes search engine marketing from other types of advertising?

Search engine traffic is highly targeted. That's because potential buyers who find your B2B offerings through search engines are looking for your products and services on their own, so they are predisposed to hear your marketing message.

• Search marketing is a non-intrusive marketing tool. Most advertising, both online and offline, interrupts consumer behavior. If a user goes to a web site for info, up pops an intrusive ad. Reading a newspaper? Ads dominate and force articles to be continued on another page. With search engine marketing, the user is actively seeking your products, services, and information. They are delighted to be driven to your site.

• Search marketing is the result of user-originated behavior. Your visitors from search engines and directories have voluntarily clicked on your listing rather than any competitors, thus they are motivated to explore your offerings.

What is the future of SEO?

The future of SEO lies primarily in good, focused content that increase the website's credibility. The visitor popularity criterion is expected to gain a lot of importance and assist in turning traffic into actual sales.
One-way text links will continue to remain important and article PR and niche directory submission will see an increase as will article submission sites. User popularity is expected to become as crucial as link popularity. On the other hand reciprocal linking, mass e-mail link requests, free directory submissions and link buying would see a decline.

How important is the Website design or structure for SEO?

Website plays a very important role in getting it indexed for any search engine. If you have not followed the basic rules while developing your website, it might not ever get indexed. So the Website design not only matters to your website visitors but also to the Search Engines.

• Using Frames are very, very bad for SEO, avoid using them

• Spiders or Crawlers don't index the content of Flash movies, so if you use Flash on your site, don't forget to give it an alternative textual description

• It is great to have a complete and up-to-date sitemap, spiders love it, no matter if it is a plain old HTML sitemap or the special Google sitemap format

If a company does not take its website's SEO seriously how can it be convinced to think otherwise?

The fact that a company has a website means that it wants attention of the target audience. If it does not take its SEO seriously then the very purpose of the website is lost. In modern economy websites have become a necessity for companies to maintain visibility and focus in the market. Online marketing and sales is a major part of any business' revenue. A company that truly wants to be successful cannot neglect it.

Without proper SEO for the website, your company would be losing out on opportunities and sales. Also a website allows you to cultivate a certain image that you want to associate your company with. It is important to recognize the vast opportunities that the Internet holds for your business and then master them. A look at how a rival is doing because of good rankings is also a good way to get the attention of the management of the company.

Do you provide any SEO Guarantee?

WebDialogue will try its best to achieve high rankings with Search Engines & Directories and provide its best efforts, but as stated in the Google Guidelines for Webmasters, no one can technically "guarantee" search engine rankings.

As the rankings are determined by secret algorithms, which keep on changing time to time. No SEO firm has control over the algorithms, thus none can guarantee rankings. We can guarantee you our 200% efforts for getting you top ranking for your website for the given keywords.

Do I really need to optimize my web site for search engines?

If your website is a major source of business and you are looking at going virtual with a strong Internet marketing campaign, SEO should probably be one of your primary objectives.
Another major incentive to opt for SEO is that more than 80% of all the Internet users run search engine keyword searches to look for what they need over the Internet. There are various SEO practices and you can choose which ones to go for.

What is SEO and why do I need it?

Search Engine Optimization is the process of preparing a website in order to achieve search engine rankings that drive traffic to your site. SEO is an ongoing process beginning with the initial optimization of the site, monthly maintenance of the site, regular evaluation of search results and adjustments to the site.

It is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. It is a collection of actions and practices that ensure that search engines index your website and that the engine rate your website as a desirable site for specific keyword searches. Essentially, SEO aims to get your website a higher search engine rankings for keywords most relevant to your business.

It is an emerging trend for obtaining the highest possible search engines rankings, attracting visitors as well as increasing the overall popularity of the website. SEO is a process of designing your website and guiding the development or redevelopment specifically for getting a website ranked in the top search engine resaults with specific keywords. It is estimated that over 85% of people use the Internet to search for products or services with the intent of purchasing. SEO helps in getting the targeted traffic and increases revenues and profits.

What is spamdexing?

There are SEO techniques that search engines do not approve of, referred to as spamdexing. Industry commentators have classified these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO.

White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing.

Why is SEO important and how can it help my business?

To start with the fact that you have a website means that you want to reach out to clients and prospective audience, thus, the visibility of your website is of prime importance.

SEO is the process of identifying the ideal keywords for a website and optimizing it in order to ensure that the website achieves high rankings on search engines and directories for those specific search terms and phrases. This in turn will direct the target audience to the website and should translate into revenue or other sector success criteria for it.

When will I start seeing results of SEO?

Usually results will show up as soon as your page is spidered. Depending on how long this takes it could be days or weeks. There is no fixed duration for seeing results but you can check regularly and monitor any difference in ranking to make out the difference.
The key is to apply good SEO methods and test your efforts before using the tools available.

How do I know that my SEO vendor is indulging in unethical SEO practices?

Some of the unethical SEO practices that one should steer clear of include the following:

• Page cloaking is when the website shows keyword rich pages to a robot but displays pages that are useless to the Internet user.

• Linkfarms are sites that have numerous links and are used to make a profit usually for an affiliate advertising program.

• Duplicate content should be avoided as it may stop your website from being indexed.

• Keyword stuffing: over usage of keywords in the content

• Spamming keywords in the title tag and meta tags.

One should ensure that the SEO vendor is not using such practices or any other black hat SEO practices for it might harm your search engine rankings.

What do the terms "white hat SEO" and "black hat SEO" mean?

SEO techniques are classified by some into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing.

Industry commentators have classified these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO. White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing.

Which practices are considered unethical or black hat SEO?

There are several ways in which you can get a good ranking. Some of these methods require more effort and are considered ethical while others are rather backhanded and considered unethical or black-hat methods.

Often people looking for quick and easy results opt for page cloaking, link farms, duplicate content, and spamming keywords to get good rankings. These methods may work but search engine crawlers are smart and can sniff a rat soon enough and your site can end up sand-boxed or ignored altogether.

Do you offer database of European Affairs contacts?

Yes. For clients we have in the past researched details of:
· Contact data MEPs, their parties, which committees they belong to (plus substitutes)
· Contact data of the Commission, DG, commissioners, cabinet staff
· Secretariat: contact data of all key DGs staff
· Contact data of the permanent representations (Council)
· Press in Brussels, contacts to bigger European media from each country represented in Brussels
Maybe also:
· Embassies in Brussels
· Regional representation offices in Brussels

How many characters (words?) does Google want in meta tags?

(What is the lower limit before they decide it is too short, and the upper limit, before they decide it is too long?)
A good meta description tag should be just right for the snippet in the search results page.
Try to keep the descriptions as short and sweet as possible - usually keeping the brand terms for awareness along with encouraging a click based on the term that each page targets. It's difficult to do within just under 100-130 characters, though.
Google typically truncates your meta description in the SERPs around 150-155 characters. Yahoo truncates around 145-150. So don't exceed 150 characters. Try to include all of the words in the top 1-3 keyword phrases the page is targeting and use action words and text to promote click throughs.
Webmaster blog post about snippets: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/improve-snippets-with-meta-description.html

Is there SEO for flash sites?

Yes! From today we offer a solution to make flash sites' content searchable for search engines.

The trick is as follows:
* First we write a script that detects if every new visitor is a person or a search engine, and then presents either HTML or Flash content depending on who is visiting
* Then we produce a simple HTML version of the site content and put it on the web server - that is only visible to search engines, which don't understand the Flash
* While we do the HTML file, we can actually add meta tags to that file, to make it extra searchable
* We can also make sure that this HMTL file is using HTML header and other HTML structures correctly so that search engines read the content correct
* All we would need is FTP access to your flash site